Tuesday Open Thread: Revolution Edition

Some moments in history are destined to be relived.

I am ready for another one.

Its time to keep our heads on a swivel, ladies and gentlemen. Watchful, cautious…and above all resolute. They'll really start pushing us now <sigh>

Powder dry.

We're on fire watch. If the congress buckles on debt ceiling and the Ryan Budget, 2012 will be another figurative "Agean stables" cleaning. Who will be Hercules, though? Can anyone divert the Potomac to flow through Capitol Hill?

My theory is the populace has become mentally obese. I know, that's a bit mean but…. Could it be, that the very freedoms we enjoyed have led us to become complacent? And now that we're complacent we refuse to act?

Yet, there are signs of life still. The Tea Party exists after all.

As Pete Townsend said…

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals when they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

[Chorus] I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

Many of Washington's soldiers at times walked miles to battle through icy snow in bare feet, leaving a bloody trail behind them. From that beginning, we have morphed into a society where nearly half the country feels entitled to part of the incomes of the other half. And a materialistic culture where too many live beyond their means in pursuit of a big house, two cars, three televisions and a collection of the latest personal electronic devices.

If we have horrible leadership, they are a reflection of us.

For leadership to change, we the people must change. An Awakening has begun. It's unsettled if it is too little or too late. But our character as a people will be tested again with the hard times that are coming. A contest is under way between the principled and the unprincipled, between the complacent and the awakened. The continuation of this magnificent country as we know it, that we have been blessed to inherit, and which too many still take for granted, depends on the outcome.

"But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American War? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people."
~ John Adams ~

Now if the Tea Party really wanted to do something, how about a good old fashioned tax revolt? That's more in keeping with the original premise.

Should one occur… we've got to wear 18th Century outfits. (Especially those great hats!) Can't have a revolt with our poor modern American "fashion".

I can live without the wigs though.

Wouldn't we dress up like Indians?

While I truly hope it never comes to this again, I fear that the time is coming and sooner than we think. I don't know what will be the spark that sets it off, but I suspect it will be at the hands of the public unions and the their enablers that we will end up in violent conflict. Again I hope not, but ….

I read Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense using the side of a drum as a desk, while retreating from the Battle of NY on their way to Valley Forge.

Indeed times that try men's souls.

There's a memorial with that saying on it on the union side of Gettysburg. "We Put Out Faith In God, But We Kept Our Powder Dry."

Most definitely. Success breads complacency. Takes a lot of spare time to wallow in self pity and come to the conclusion you were cheated and the world owes you a living. Can't do that if you're working for three hots and a cot.

This is the result of the Reagan revolution. Things in America got so good, people had the luxury to sit around and whine.

My second favorite founding father after George Washington. Jefferson may have written most of the text of the Declaration of Independence, and the Congress may have ratified it, but it was Adams who fought tooth and nail with the delegates to get it passed. He thought July 3rd would go down in history because that's the day the resolution passed to sign it.

A man of immeasurable courage and conviction. He defended the British soldiers who fired at the Boston Massacre, and won. And he considered one of his greatest political victories, destroying his political career by avoiding a war.

Men like Adams are few and far between.

True Ed, it DOES say it all but it gets lost on the left. They don't care about said document nor do they have any respect whatsoever of the men that died defending it. I pity them as they call for revolution. They'll be running to their own doom. They waste their strength and their lives on lies perpetrated by the loons that wish to destroy us from inside. Our enemies now are purely domestic and most cannot or will not see the forest through the trees. Ignorance at its best.

King George was from Kenya?

Fast forward to today – TURNING A BLIND EYE
It takes uncommon valor to disobey unlawful orders originating at the very top of the chain of command…the Commander-in-Chief.

These are true American heroes not soon to be forgotten:
Cmdr. Charles F. Kerchner, Jr., USNR (Ret.)
Lt. Cmdr.Walt Fitzpatrick III USN (Ret.)
Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin
Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook
Capt. Connie Rhodes
1st Lt. Scott Easterling
http://i51.tinypic.com/nfl4l0.jpg

They swore a solemn oath:
"I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God."
***(DA Form 71, 1 August 1959, for officers.)

These patriots have remained true to their loyalty.

Yep. The hippies have come home to roost. Old,lost,tired and self-centered. And they taught thier children well. Only took me 2 years of thier crying and whinning to cast off the smell and join the Air Force. Best move I ever made.

He held the rule of law to be superior to the rule of the mob. An honorable man.

"The Left is touting that $5 gas is the tipping point for most Americans to accept electric vehicles."

They would. I happen to feel that $5 gas would be the tipping point for most Americans to drill an oil well in their backyard.

The American revolution was waged to throw off the tyranny of a monarchy. American's wanted no more kings to rule them. Over the 200+ years since that time we have elevated the president to a quasi-king. Fawning media and drooling sycophants ascribe king-like powers to the office. I submit the president is naught but the CEO of a rather large corporation whose sole job is to implement the rule of law and the will of the people. This president worship has got to cease.

My revolution theory is change your payroll deductions to a little as possible and stop filing taxes. When there is no money coming maybe the irrational spending will stop. All we want is accountability for the taxes that we pay.

Now that's a revolution. If everybody stiffed the IRS you'd better believe that would send a wake up call.

They cant arrest all of us.

It really isn't a Democrat or Republican thing. That's so obvious now. Because if it were, then the Republicans would have embraced the Tea Party with open arms, realized the error of their ways and would be fighting tooth and nail. But as it is, only a handful are really fighting for us in Congress. And the GOP does not like the Tea Party and would love to co-opt it and then twist it into their own little group of robots spouting the party line which is nothing more than another form of Progressivism and a slightly different kind of Big Government.

I am reading this . . . and I am the resistance.

I think you got great answers to your question.

My mom was on the phone with a creditor the other day and she made a flippant comment about the bad economy. The person on the phone was young apparently; in his 20s. His comment was basically – I have a job so I don't care.

That's the problem – as long as we get ours, we don't care about the big picture. That's the attitude that is killing us.

It's easy to recruit those that are hurting and can therefore really see the big picture. It's harder to recruit those who are comfortable.

But was it any different during the First Revolution? Only about 20%-25% were actual revolutionaries; the same amount were loyalists and the rest were apathetic and waited to see which side would win.

It's the same today.

Not quite, there's more, and it's quite, um, revolutionary:

"That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

I know there was. I stopped there on purpose. I don't want to confuse people into thinking I support violence. The battlefield for this war is the mind. The weapons are ideas. And the enemy are those on the left who do their best to prevent the free exchange of ideas.

I know; I'm being cheeky. However, one can take the words I posted in a non-violent way as well. Through seriously clearing out the Republican Party and seriously paying attention to politics and voting and primaries, etc., we can "throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

Totally respect that. But I also know that you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. I've been accused of being all kinds of things, including being a supporter of what Jared Loughner did because I was defending the Right against the slander.

There was some old saying about being just as apt to be hung for one thing or another.

Plus, if it makes the Left even a tiny bit nervous, then I'm satisfied.

Finally, if we ever hit hard tyranny (as opposed to the soft tyranny we suffer from today), I know that we would all not just use words in order to rid ourselves of that tyranny.

Hispanics/Latinos……….please come to the party who wants you to have jobs as much as the rest of America. Leave the Party of Food Stamps and Poverty and fight with us for jobs, smaller government that will lead to less taxes and more of our paychecks to stay in our wallets.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/05/conservati...

http://www.TeaPartyNation.com http://www.FreedomWorks.com

Vote and grade YOUR elected Congressmen at:
http://www.gradegov.com/

sorry I can't see that the unions could actually do anything that would spark it off. If they beat up some TEA party people and maybe smash a plate glass windows that's localized. They don't have the stones to become blatantly violent and start assassinating their opponents either. They are the mob type–throw rocks, burn a car, etc.

no I don't think we will ever see that level of violence because they can't control the message like they used too. Thank god for our freedom and the US government for inventing the darpa net–the grandma of the internet.

Now if little Barry Soetero the Keynesian shuts down the internet–then the gloves are off. It won't be straight out fight like the civil war with massed formations of troops wearing blue or grey. More likely 80 million patriots will seize control of the media, the power stations, the water pumping stations, highway interchanges. All commerce will stop–think about what is occurring in Libya. Chaos, confusion, etc.

Then it's up to the Patriots of Virgina, Maryland, the Carolina's, and all over New England to take the fight to our alleged masters in DC. The rest of us won't be able to drive there in time from the Pacific time zone.

I believe you're correct. There was a rough split between revolutionaries and loyalists and a large apathetic middle. It could have gone either way, and the outcome shaped the world for the next 235 years.

We are again at a crossroads that could go either way, and so shape the world for the next 100 years.

Leftist radicals are convinced of this, which partly explains their fervor.

"Leftist radicals are convinced of this, which partly explains their fervor."

Boy howdy! They are absolutely apoplectic because they figured that with Obama they had America "in the bag". Boy were they wrong!

There seems to be many conservatives that started out liberal. I can't think of any examples of the opposite case.

So many of my stances wound up leaning to the "limited government" side, the "personal responsibility" side that eventually I was going to wake up and realize I wasn't a liberal. My only reason for calling myself one was because I believed that there needed to be a gov't run social safety net because some people couldn't make it. I believed in some small way that a little more gov't was okay. It was also partly because it's "cool" to be liberal and because I bought into the BS that the MSM was selling me about Republicans.

But when the Democrats and the Left in general started showing their true colors, it woke me up and I realized – I don't want to associate with these people. It included Clarence Thomas, Bill Clinton, then the whole Bush v. Gore thing and then finally the Left's response to 9/11.

I shed my "liberal economic" outlook a bit more slowly, so afraid that if the gov't didn't "care" for certain people, bad things would happen. Larry Elder finally cured me of it.

Now I'm a proud conservatarian.

In short, how many of you really want to be free and how many of you just want to get rid of the ox that's currently goring your interests whilst leaving the rest of the modern social welfare state in place?

We've pretty much dug ourselves into the grave with the massive debt that we now have. Taxes will go up, our military and economic strength will be broken, but 'conservative' people will keep clinging to farm subsidies and other 'good' aspects of big government. Liberals will keep paddling over the falls, still stuck back in the 1950's, in love with communism, an ideology that utterly devistated Russia and left its people a rotting carcass. A sad end to a great Republic.

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